Ministry of Innovation —

UK’s Daily Mail: Google is a “parasitic monster”

It's a parasite, it's a monster, it's Google, warns one of London's top …

It appears that somebody at the United Kingdom's Daily Mail had a really bad night's sleep last night. And the first thing he saw when he woke up was the word "Google."

"Why is No.10 in thrall to this parasitic monster?" asks a Mail Onlinescreed.

"No. 10," of course, refers to the Downing Street HQ of that country's Prime Minister, David Cameron. The "parasitic monster" in question comes from Mountain View, California, and is apparently in charge of the wholesale ransacking of British music, landmarks, and literature.

"Google has become a global predator ruthlessly gobbling up potential rivals such as YouTube and 'stealing' the creative work of writers, film makers and the music industry," the tirade warns.

"The monster," The Mail adds, "undermines investment in the very creative industries that have become such an important part of our national prosperity, and employ hundreds of thousands of people."

Just switch on the computer

Just look at what this ruthless brute has done to Britain's latest song sensation, the 21-year-old Adele (who, apparently unaware of her digital manhandling, has her own official page on YouTube).

One only has to switch on the computer, call up the Google search engine and type in the name of a star like Adele to understand why the digital channel is such a threat to the UK's performers, and for that matter our whole creative industry.

Nine out of the first ten websites which pop up on Google's search engine are run by pirates who have downloaded Adele's output and offer it online far more cheaply than official copyrighted sites and High Street retailers.

We googled Adele's name and got (1) her official site, (2) her official site again, (3) her MySpace page, (4) a bunch of news stories about her, (5) YouTube videos, (6) her Wikipedia page, (7) her concert listings, (8) reviews for an "Adele's Hair Design," (9) Adele (the singer) photos, and (10) her Facebook page.

Cocooned

But never mind these irrelevant details. The question is why the government is appeasing this global roué, poised "to throw away decades if not centuries of intellectual copyright while at the same time lobbying governments all over the world in a bid to drive a coach and horses through the laws."

Apparently, the PM is "cocooned in his Downing Street bubble with his Google cheerleaders," most notably strategy director Steve Hilton, who is married to Google's head of Communications, Rachel Whetstone.

It's all coming together now.

"Will the Government only be satisfied when every last independent book publisher and specialist music store has been closed, our recording industry hollowed out and investment in brilliant new artists—capable of taking on the world—has been eliminated," The Mail ruefully wonders. No doubt that that's exactly the plan.

Matthew Lasar
Matt writes for Ars Technica about media/technology history, intellectual property, the FCC, or the Internet in general. He teaches United States history and politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Emailmatthew.lasar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@matthewlasar

For those outside of the UK who don't know - the Daily Mail is a tabloid targeted at the ignorant bulk of British (though mainly English) subjects who lay awake at night worrying about their mortgages and/or prevalence of cancer due to a wide variety of circumstances. It is not in anyway an accurate record of events. No idea why Ars would devote an article to it....

For those outside of the UK who don't know - the Daily Mail is a tabloid targeted at the ignorant bulk of British (though mainly English) subjects who lay awake at night worrying about their mortgages and/or prevalence of cancer due to a wide variety of circumstances. It is not in anyway an accurate record of events. No idea why Ars would devote an article to it....

Comedy value? I swear, I thought it was a Daily Mash story at first...

Ramblings about the Daily Fail aside, I know that Google customizes your search results pretty heavily based on things such as your recent searches and your geographical location.

Would that mean, then, that the reporter in the Daily Mail and Ars's very own Mr. Laser doing the same search, but from different locations (presumably in the UK and in the USA respectively) would result in extremely different Google search results?

And, if either one (or both) were logged into Google at the time of the search, would the searches be even more disparate as a result?

Because if this was in fact the case one could draw some pretty interesting conclusions about what the Daily Mail reporter searches for in his or her spare time.

For those outside of the UK who don't know - the Daily Mail is a tabloid targeted at the ignorant bulk of British (though mainly English) subjects who lay awake at night worrying about their mortgages and/or prevalence of cancer due to a wide variety of circumstances. It is not in anyway an accurate record of events. No idea why Ars would devote an article to it....

It was peculiarly perfect example of tabloid screed; as such, we thought it worth pointing readers to just as a way to see the sorts of attitudes that are being whipped up out there. With the recent MS antitrust complaint against Google, I'd expect much more of this sort of things in the next year or two. It doesn't have to be accurate to make an impact.

We know of it, and loathe it. Not entirely sure why this tabloid's article was material to write about. Sorry Ars, but after reading articles about Tevatron and other rather bright articles, this kinda sticks out like a sore thumb.

For those outside of the UK who don't know - the Daily Mail is a tabloid targeted at the ignorant bulk of British (though mainly English) subjects who lay awake at night worrying about their mortgages and/or prevalence of cancer due to a wide variety of circumstances. It is not in anyway an accurate record of events. No idea why Ars would devote an article to it....

It was peculiarly perfect example of tabloid screed; as such, we thought it worth pointing readers to just as a way to see the sorts of attitudes that are being whipped up out there. With the recent MS antitrust complaint against Google, I'd expect much more of this sort of things in the next year or two. It doesn't have to be accurate to make an impact.

Oh I'm all for highlighting the ridiculous posturing of the tabloids when it comes to their lack of understanding of the Internet, but if you took that on as a battle cry you would not have any space left to publish your worthy articles that cause me to visit your site so very often .

What's interesting about the article is the tabloid uses the exact same arguments that Big Content does. "Pirates offering [content] more cheaply". More cheaply? Free is seven less letters, you'd have more room for bile, buddy! One wonders if "more cheaply" is a new talking point of Big Content. All you have to do is work it into every statement and it will become true! Pirates really do resell content - I heard it from just about everyone.

It's fairly obvious -- the same reason this nonsense subject is getting play in countries around the world: because the politicians are inarguably corrupt. They're either taking bribes, or just prostituting themselves for lucrative jobs after they leave the public sector ("save our industry and there'll be a lucrative job for you in our industry where you won't even have to work -- so it'll be exactly the same, but you won't have to run for office").

As for the source, sure, the source is less than credible. Does it matter? No. The same sort of nonsense drivel is being pushed by every media outlet. Some phrase it more softly, but the message is the same -- a whiny industry that needs to change refuses to do so and wants government to waste millions, if not billions of taxpayers dollars simultaneously harassing it's own citizens and fighting something that no one outside the industry gives a shit about. They're happy to blame everyone but themselves (eg. those who really deserve the blame).

1. Official web site2 & 3 more links from her official web site4. "News for Adele"5. Her Wikipedia page6. Adele's MySpace page7. Her LastFM page8. Her Facebook page9. Local iinet site "Free Online English Exercises for Students of English as a Second or Foreign Language."10. Adele.org.au - "Adele house kickboxing rehab boxing vince tempone." whatever that is.

I'm hoping this isn't ARS' way of jumping on this dumb MSFT vs. Google issue. Mentioning some other website's article on a topic for sake of starting conversation is pretty poor journaling if you're using tabloids as tinder.

Apart from the fact nobody and his dog gives a flying fart about this worthless, utterly useless junk called Daily Mail - yes, it's too hard even for that - I would only ask one question: is that possible that Rachel Whetstone, Google's Head of Communications is actually a man? I mean there's no way someone would marry such a strikingly ugly woman except for some very kinky reason (which would be pretty normal for a Brit )...